No one is more familiar with Dublin and its history than Pat Liddy, who has made a second career for himself out of drawing the city. During the 1980s, his weekly series,"Dublin Today", beautifully executed line drawings complete with admirable potted histories, were staple reading in this newspaper.
Since then, he has gone on to do nearly a dozen books about Dublin. His latest title, Pat Liddy and the Changing Landscapes of Dublin, strikes me as an immeasurable achievement. It is also an engrossing sweep across the history of the city from prehistoric times into the imagined future city of 2050.
The book is a judicious mix of black-and-white ink drawings, done with exquisite penmanship, and full colour illustrations, some in oil, others in watercolour.One good example among many comes from Liddy's two drawings, side by side, of the facade of Trinity College, facing onto College Green. In the coloured one, every stone block is lovingly delineated. One big full colour plate I particularly liked shows what the Dublin area might have looked like 12,000 years ago, when it was all open land going down to the sea.
Elsewhere, Liddy colours the Speed and Rocque maps of 17th- and 18th-century Dublin, making them so vivid that they are almost three-dimensional. All the changes in the city's landscapes are well marked out, showing for instance, the peninsula or spit of land on which Ringsend village once stood.
Pat Liddy has drawn many individual properties for the book, including the four remaining "Dutch Billies", the Dutch-style houses with unusual front gables that were so prevalent in 17th- and 18th-century Dublin. Thousands of them were built. He has also included the Jewish cemetery in Ballybough, built in the Jewish year 5618 (1857 AD). The last interment took place there in 1908.By way of contrast, he includes the old St Fintan's church at Sutton, dating from the 9th century.
Producing a book of this quality is enormously expensive.The print run was limited to 2,000 copies and substantial but non-intrusive sponsorship was led by CRH. The book follows on from an exhibition held in City Hall, Dublin, last autumn.
While the book is so informative on the visual aspects of the developing city from Norse times onwards, the present is not neglected. Lots of recent and planned developments are given the Liddy treatment, from the Westin Hotel in Westmoreland Street to Ongar village in Clonsilla and the proposed redevelopment of Tara Street railway station. Liddy goes into such detail that for the St Stephen's Green shopping centre, he lists many of the businesses that stood on the site until nearly 20 years ago, including Rice's pub.
The human touch is there, too. Liddy has included a colour plate, done in 1982,of an old man who used to walk up and down Grafton Street ceaselessly in the late 1970s. The image serves as a reminder of the battalions of street characters who once graced Dublin, such as the woman who played her harpsichord in Wicklow Street; "Bang Bang", who pretended to shoot everyone; the photographer on O'Connell Bridge; and the Hickey brothers, who wandered round all day, rearranging the city centre buildings in their imaginations with constant gesticulation.
Changing social patterns are highlighted. Pat Liddy includes a drawing of the mosque in Clonskeagh and notes that he was made to feel welcome there.
While so much of the historical and current material is so fascinating, what is most intriguing is Liddy's vision of the future. Perhaps surprisingly, he believes Dublin will be a safer city. Not only will there be Luas lines and a Metro system criss-crossing the city, but everything will be inter-connected. The city will also have more tunnels; clearly,the Dublin Port tunnel is just the first. Buses,however,will still have a pivotal role in public transport. As for Dublin airport, he predicts new runways and 50 million passengers a year; what will the check-in queues or the car parking look like?
Liddy forecasts that the historic villages in Dublin will have rediscovered their identity, but at the same time, the city will have spread out to embrace Naas and Greystones. Skerries and Balbriggan will have coalesced into one vast conurbation.
In fewer than 150 pages, Pat Liddy has encompassed a vast amount of information, besides countless illustrations. For anyone who loves the history of Dublin, where the city has come from and where it's going, this is a priceless production. It is also a fine complement to his new website all about - you guessed it - Dublin,its history and people (www.patliddy.com).